October 18, 2009

What is the theory here, economist guy? You don't want too many people on your webpage? The obvious theory is that you don't like what people are going to say on your post that demands that we all bow to the scientific consensus on global warming. As Barack Obama likes to say the time for debate is over. We need to shut up now.

Krugman, like quite a few others, is writing about the new Freakonomics book — "SuperFreakonomics" — which says some inconvenient things about global warming:

The chapter [on global warming] opens with the “global cooling” story — the claim that 30 years ago there was a scientific consensus that the planet was cooling, comparable to the current consensus that it’s warming.

Um, no.... What you had in the 70s was a few scientists advancing the cooling hypothesis, and a few popular media stories hyping their suggestions....

What you have today is a massive research program involving thousands of scientists...

And then we come to a bit of economics. The book asks

Do the future benefits from cutting emissions outweigh the costs of doing so? Or are we better off waiting to cut emissions later — or even, perhaps, polluting at will and just learning to live in a hotter world?

The economist Martin Weitzman analyzed the best available climate models and concluded that the future holds a 5 percent chance of a terrible-case scenario....

Yikes. I read Weitzman’s paper, and have corresponded with him on the subject — and it’s making exactly the opposite of the point they’re implying it makes. Weitzman’s argument is that uncertainty about the extent of global warming makes the case for drastic action stronger, not weaker.

I don't see what's all "yikes" about taking an economist's assessment of the chance of something happening and then drawing a different conclusion about what policies ought to be adopted. And Krugman is accusing the authors — Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner — of misrepresenting what Weitzman said. I haven't read Weitzman or "SuperFreakonomics," but on the face of it, the accusation is incoherent.

And Krugman blocks commenting, on the purported theory that he can't be overwhelmed. Ha ha. He would be overwhelmed by comments saying he hasn't made a coherent point. He's hoping we will bow to his economics expertise and the fact that he's read Weitzman, he knows Weitzman. And it's harder to make gullible NYT readers buy that when the comments are ruthlessly poking holes in it.

The global warming "consensus" is all about telling us to stop talking and bow to expertise. That pose is laughable in a world of new media where you can no longer turn off the comments.

113 comments:

There was no scientific consensus 30 years ago that the Earth was cooling -- that's a rewrite of history. There were people who were suggesting it might be happening, and there was a lively debate about it that was never settled.

I remember the early 70's when there was talk about the earth cooling. I don't remember any debate. Which brings us to the present day. Let me quote a sage, who very thoughtfully explains why people are doubting the global warming. He said: "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Speaking of Newsweek, here's an article from 1975: The Cooling World. There's no sign in of a debate about the cooling, just some disagreement about its extent. It's a mirror of what we have now, with cooling substituted for warming.

The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic.

Among the proposed "solutions:" melting the arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers.

Trying to block the burning of carbon fuels when we rely on carbon based fuels is like trying to block the water behind Hoover Dam after the dam burst. Any solution would be super expensive and probably would not work anyway. Even if you could convince Europeans and Americans to do it, the Chinese, Russians and Indians would not.

But put effort into alternatives to carbon fuels? That will be a long term solution.

And Krugman is a coward. And now he and Sullivan are on the same side.

The authors have responded at their NYT Freakonomics blog, and they haven't disabled comments.

We are working on a thorough response to these critics, which we hope to post on the blog in the next day or two. The bottom line is that the foundation of these attacks is essentially fraudulent, as we’ll spell out in detail. In the meantime, let us just say the following.

Like those who are criticizing us, we believe that rising global temperatures are a man-made phenomenon and that global warming is an important issue to solve. Where we differ from the critics is in our view of the most effective solutions to this problem. Meaningfully reducing global carbon emissions has proven to be difficult, if not impossible. This isn’t likely to change, for the reasons we discuss in the book. Consequently, other approaches represent a more promising path to lowering the Earth’s temperature. The critics are implying that we dismiss any threats from global warming; but the entire point of our chapter is to discuss global-warming solutions, so obviously that’s not the case.

The statements being circulated create the false impression that our analysis of the global-warming crisis is ideological and unscientific. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1984 I took a course at Johns Hopkins on Environmental Engineering. At the time, the big problem with the state-of-the-art climate models was that, when plugged into state-of-the-art computers, they all ended up with a "snowball earth."

Back then, reasonable scientists and engineers assumed the models were wrong, because the facts didn't fit the models' predictions. Now inconvenient facts are simply ignored while the "consensus model" is used to political ends.

It's so striking to me how environmental movements inspire a kind of religious fervor among many of their devotees--unlike many other social political movements. Not just the issue of human-caused global warming, but even a much less pressing subject, recycling.

The issues are similar in this regard--that one can make very sensible observations that certain proposed solutions to global warming, like some recycling projects, while they make people feel good, may end up being counterproductive. Try it in conversation some time, see what I mean.

Those of you who are both secular and persuaded of these causes--haven't you noticed this? Does this not strike you as odd, or cause any concern? After all, aren't these all matters of science--not dogma?

I am old enough (Yikes!) to remember reading the National Geographic edition with the pictures of one of the Great Lakes (Superior? Michigan) overwhelming the beachfront property of some towns because global cooling was slowing evaporation & the lakes were rising faster than they could drain. The picture of the kids' playground under a foot or so of water was especialy striking.

All that is gone, of course, because science is now consensus, as in "What do scientists feel is right?" versus the old unfunctional "What does the data in fact say?"

When you have a meteorologist who is concerned about carbon dioxide emissions (Roger Pielke, Sr at http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/e-mail-communication-between-josh-willis-and-roger-a-pielke-sr-on-the-murphy-et-al-2009-paper/) directing attention to another meteorologist who is not (Roy Spencer at http://www.drroyspencer.com/) you know climate science is far more complicated than the "debate-is-over" crowd claims.

Leftists have long longed for a way to wrest the US economy away from the post-industrial consumer-oriented free-marketeering approach which has characterized it and dominated it since WWII. First they glommed onto environmentalism generally as a means to do it, but it wasn't enough. So they went to the global warming hoax as a way to infuse it with with a sense of urgency. That's all there is to that.

As for comments, it isn't just leftist bloggers who throttle comments because their egos can't handle dissenting points of view. The Powerline boys come to mind thataway too.

I have been the most skeptical of AGW skeptics, but a conversation I just had is giving me pause. I just talked to a cousin of mine who is a commercial fisherman out of Juneau Alaska who talked about catching tropical fish in the Gulf of Alaska, and that Mendenhall Glacier, an imposing chunk of ice when I lived there twenty-five years ago, is nearly gone. Sure, anecdotal as hell, but my cousin has no axe to grind.

What has always bothered me the most is the idea that there is no debate possible on AGW, either regarding causes or remedies. The Freakonomics authors have it right-- no one in the pro-AGW crowd want to hear anything about solutions that might allow us to continue using energy while reducing the effects of putative warming-- which makes me suspicious of their motives. The Gores and the Krugmans know a social-engineering bandwagon when they see one.

Krugman decides to "censor" the comments on his OWN site...and the local yahoos (and the Queen of course) are terribly offended?

You miss the point (color me surprised). The '60s, Alinskyite, KGB-infiltrated Left is afraid of dissent on principle - which says a lot about their confidence in their own arguments. If they (and you) were as smart and right (i.e., correct) as you say, you would welcome debate.

PS Not the Queen; the Grand Duchess of Discussion, the Crown Princess of Polemics.

"Among the proposed "solutions (for the cooling) :" melting the arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers."

Imagine if those "solutions" had been implemented. How stupid it would look in hind site. Now look at current proposals and look into the future to see how the current proponents will find ways to avoid responsibility for their mistake.

This kind of reminds me of hearing a noise at night and just opening fire with a shotgun despite hearing the familiar sound of your cat scratching in the cat box.

How much evidence of cooling or lack of warming would it take to convince these people that they should stop pushing these policies. Can you even imagine any climate that would make them say: "We were wrong."

I don't know what direction global temps will take, but after reviewing a lot of the data, I'm positive they don't either.

Jeremy is showing his true fascist colors by attacking Ann instead of attacking Krugman for censoring debate on his site. He knows Ann never does that, does he give her credit for that? No. All that matters for the lefties is to praying at the altar of their ideology which is Communism, Global Warming, Obama, Al Gore, Michael Moore.

A couple of economists suggesting that we should carefully weigh the costs and benefits before completely restructuring our economy? Yikes! That's clearly nothing but Limbaugh-inspired right wing kookiness.

Did you even look at the oil company links I posted? They all show these major oil companies accepting the reality of AGW. Please explain why they'd do that if it's not true. Again, it'd be like tobacco companies admitting cigarettes cause cancer when it's not even true according to AGW-deniers' stubborn, dogmatic, ridiculous, absurd, illogical, irrational, anti-science, anti-Earth stance.

I see that Krugman has a follow-up post, Weitzman in context, in which (to boil it down) he says that since there is "a significant risk of utter catastrophe if we don’t act," "quick, decisive action" is required. "[W]e’re talking, quite possibly, about the fate of civilization. It’s not a place to play snarky, contrarian games." Games? Nobody's playing games. Sounds like that column in which he referred to a vote against Waxman-Markey as "treason against the planet."

I guess he gets all his groceries delivered. After all, driving to the market involves a significant risk of being in a fatal crash. Even walking there, he could get run over, or slip on the ice and fracture his skull, or get mugged.

It's like tobacco companies acknowledging cigarettes cause cancer while conservatives still deny it. Conservatives are so damn dumb. Nothing can convince them they're wrong short of their fat leader Limbaugh conceding it.

Then there is political correctness. Of course they want to look politically correct here. After all, according to GW proponents, they are the primary offenders.

So, no, I don't take their current position to be the least bit indicative or persuasive about whether there is or is not currently global warming, or whether or not Dubner and Levitt are right that even if there is Global Warming, maybe we should look at whether or not the proposed solutions (such as Cap and Trade) are the optimal solutions to this "problem".

I don't need to, because it doesn't matter one damned whit what the oil companies (or Al Gore) say. The science is not settled, and only those who are scientifically illiterate or who have other (perhaps less obvious) reasons keep insisting it is. I know settled science when I see it; and trust me pal, it's very seldom seen.

A question I have asked and never seen answered when I asked it: do the climate models upon which these policy decisions depend correctly predict today's climate when data from 20 or 100 yrs ago are input? Call it a positive control if you will. If they don't, then they are worthless as far as the purpose of instituting policy to try to solve any "predicted" long-term consequences. If they do, that still doesn't remotely mean the science is settled, but we could then go on to additional criteria that would need to be met to consider the science "settled."

Look, ever since Krugman was a hired shill for Enron, he has routinely prostituted himself for money and power. This is the guy who supplied the economic justification for the "stimulus" bill that flushed almost a trillion dollars down the drain, primarily benefiting Democratic constituents and donors, while paying in some states almost a half a million dollars per job created. And, then has repeated pushed for another similar "stimulus" bill because the last one worked so well.

Tone, there are perfectly good reasons why oil companies will go along with AGW. They believe the politics will win over the science long enough for them to make significant money off of alternative technologies, which they are all investing in intensely. If the climate does warm, or if it doesn't, they are sitting pretty and dominate all technologies including oil.

You need to stick to the facts and data and not make the mistake of judging science by who supports what policy.

Besides the oil companies have also said just the opposite at times and you chose then not to accept it, so you are just picking what facts you like after deciding what you want to believe.

That's this dispute in a nutshell: everyone just picks what facts they like.

They believe the politics will win over the science long enough for them to make significant money off of alternative technologies, which they are all investing in intensely.

Hydrogen fuel for cars is an example of such an alternative. Not present naturally in significant quantities, hydrogen will be made from hydrocarbons. I don't see any plans to ramp up production from water electrolysis.

Here is one of the more coherent comments in response to the Freakonomics blog:

I am a paleoclimatologist, and can only say FINALLY. Someone with economics background understands the difference between reality and a model for reality.

Al Gore, Jim Hansen, Paul Krugman, and many on this page want us to base public policy on models claim to predict the future of the climate, even though they do not model cloud formation correctly, do not incorporate the Sun, and do not model the biosphere feedback at all (just for starters). This is not (necessarily) a criticism of modelers. Modeling a planet is difficult; many things will be left out of a model. It is likewise not surprising that these models have failed to predict anything (that is, say in advance what is going to happen). Not hurricanes, not El Nino, not the cooling of the past few years. Nor do they “retrodict” things from the past that the modelers did not know about and therefore did not parameterize into their models. Not the Pliocene warming. Not the Ice Age terminations, nothing.

Those of us who work with models are not surprised by this at all. We are still crawling in climate modeling, and one must crawl before one walks. The only surprise is that politicians should have become so fixated so strongly on science that is just not there.

Jim Hansen had an interesting hypothesis; that feedback cycles that amplify CO2-caused increases in temperature might overwhelm feedback cycles that damp this perturbation. Maybe. Any good scientist would consider it as a hypothesis. But it is clear now that it is a poorly supported hypothesis, and is certainly no grounds for determining public policy.

The problem arises because Al Gore declared Hansen’s hypothesis “a winner”, made a movie and won a Nobel Peace Prize. And so non-scientists (including many people writing on this page) think they have “settled science” in their pocket. This is not the first time that science has been corrupted by politicians selecting a winner. Stalin re. Lysenko; and back to the Pharaohs.

On this page, we have people who display none of the critical thinking required for science who nonetheless think that their opinion is “scientific”. Gecko thinks that the European heat wave means something (no, weather is not climate). Tom Olson is certain that your chapter is “flawed” (It probably is, but does Tom have a clue why?). Nell is certain that “virtually all climate scientists and … governments understand that global warming is … happening faster than predicted.” No we do not, and no it is not. Bart Verheaggan is convinced that “CO2 is the major culprit in the warming.” The preponderance of the evidence opposes that.

Crf also thinks that science is based on “virtual consensus” and asks scientists to defer judgment to a government panel, the IPCC. Science begins, as Feynman points out, “assuming the ignorance of experts.” Also, scientists have agendas, like every other human being. The agenda of the governmental IPCC is known; it is different from the agendas of Pearson (racial Darwinism of the 1930’s), Stalin (Lysenko) and other examples from our politico-scientific past back to the Pharaohs, but the IPCC is just as obstructive of the scientific process as any of these historical examples. Which is why researchers are couching their observations inconsistent with the anthropogenic CO2 hypothesis in cover language; they fear political reprisals from the Gores, Krugmans, and Obamas of the world.

Decades of bad science education, and here we are. What a sorry state.

When our Marxist President eagerly surrenders American sovreignty to a Governmental UN Death Panel to American industry and agriculture by ceding our control over every event in America taking place that in any way affects Carbon Based life's existence on the planet earth, then will we pull what Honduras pulled and declare the Constitution trumps national suicide? That is the political question we face today.

The Warming Scare Terrorists in Chicago and NYC and DC need to turn in all of their wool clothes this winter, since it is so much warmer than ever...Wait a minute, it is cooler that ever in recorded weather record keeping history by 15 degrees last weekend. Please everybody double their CO2 usage footprints everywhere in a hurry.That is what these same AlGore scientists would be saying today if they were "untouchable" by the Eco-Mafia.

Global Cooling may not have been as well "accepted" as Global Warming is today, but back 20 years ago, there were zealots about it too. I remember suffering through the same Global Cooling speech by our (then) Sen. Timmy Wirthless that year that sounded little different from what we hear now about Global Warming. Maybe if it had panned out a bit better, he would have gotten the Nobel prize, and not AlGore.

Another lefty who just presumes that all conservatives have never done any reading or research on the topic of AGW, and just need some proper educatin' to see the light. (Not sure what s/he thinks of "liberal" apostates- does s/he assume there are none; or simply that those opinions don't count?)

To paraphrase Kipling: it is "the liberal's burden" to be correct. Once they reach a consensus on anything in their ivory tower echo-chambers, the debate is over and the focus is turned towards the endgame. To that end, dissenters need to be educated or silenced.

Too much of this kind of attitude and you end up with Tom Friedman wistfully imagining would it would be like if we were more authoritarian like China, where the "enlightened" leaders can force their enlightened agenda on the unenlightened populace. And then they wonder why people compare them to fascists.

I'm hoping a string of cold winters, like the one we had last year, the overall cooler, wetter year we just had, and the cold one we're about get...tear apart the whole house of global warming cards.

Even if, and this is a huge if, it were as bad as the gorezealots claim (all the while living in houses that consume 20x the average power, I might add), EVERYONE in the world should be accountable, not just the "developed" nations.

He puts forward a bit of scientific criticism of the models that I believe will be at least partially comprehensible to the non-physicist. A quote from the article:"I have been a fluid dynamical modeller and I know how flaky numerical models can be for even a relatively small chunk of fluid like the Derwent Estuary. The models are highly unstable and need to be carefully cosseted in order to perform at all realistically. One reason for their inherent instability is that the mesh size of the model grid (typically hundreds of metres to hundreds of kilometres) is always much larger than the scale at which friction and molecular diffusion operate (millimetres or less). These are the forces which act to damp down oscillations by converting free energy to heat. In order to get around this difficulty, in order to keep a model stable, it is common practice to set certain parameters such as eddy viscosity unrealistically high to compensate for the absence of molecular friction. This is reasonable if we are using the model to gain insight into underlying processes, but it means that fluid dynamic models are not much good at predicting the future. There is no exact correspondence between model and reality, and the two soon part company. Fluid mechanics and celestial mechanics are very different disciplines."

Well, I certainly hope not. I don't want to see the Democrats destroy American manufacturing with cap-and-tax foolishness, but the damage can be undone without resorting to an actual revolution. When unemployment crests 10%, we're going to see Jimmie Carter Redoux's numbers plummet.

As long as we can keep ACORN, or whatever it will call itself post-Pimpgate, from stuffing the ballot boxes, we'll be rid of these socialist imbeciles within a few years, and it will be decades before they'll control congress again (after about 20 years, there will be enough stupid young voters who don't remember Carter I or Carter II, and who want to vote for "the cool guy", and we'll go through this shit all over again).

JT Drake -- I think you're on to something here, I think that climate is simply too complex, too dependent upon too many factors, to be accurately modeled, without a computer and an algorithm as big and as complex as the Earth, moon, and sun.

I think that Crimso had a very good comment: Let's start paying attention to climatologists' models when they can predict past variations in climate. Until then, they're as useless as reading tea leaves.

Decades of bad science education, and here we are. What a sorry state.

Which brings us to the REAL culprit of the entire argument:

The Failure of Public Education in the United States over the last 35 years.

The critical thinking required of an average citizen to discern even basic common sense over such discussions has deteriorated to such a degree that fascism from the left taking root has greater opportunity and likelihood than any time in the last 70 years. That is why all of the yelling and mind closing and authoritarianism of the left is what we have in such great quantities today.

Don't understand global warming? Shut up!

Don't get why the public option in healthcare is still on the recently passed Senate bill even though polls show Americans are opposed? Shut up!

Having a hard time with the racist label being thrown at every right-wing commentator and pundit simply because they oppose the policies of Obama? Shut up!

Difficult to understand why same sex marriage is necessary? Shut the fuck up!

No explanations needed - just shut up and grab your ankles. The left is in charge!

Pastafarian...The Hondurans did a totally legal thing, but they are now under continual pressure from the UN apparatchiks (including Obama and Hillary)based upon a Big Lie that an illegal Coup D'Etat took place. When the UN investigators recently reported truthfull on the Honduran law, the the Kings of the UN simply denied anyone else's authority to state a truth in public. So when Sarah Palin tells the UN Governmental Climate Authority that the USA is pulling out of the treaty that Obama and Pelossi create, will she be treated as Jefferson Davis was treated by Lincoln? If all nuclear weapons are also under UN control, then no American response will be taken seriously.If not, then we can be embargoed by the UN world trade. Already Obama seems totally unworried about the results of further elections among the old United States part of the North American Province.

The wide availability of computers to run created models on makes alarming predictions possible.

Alarming predictions make funding possible.

Funding makes continuing and growing alarms possible.

What's happened isn't some sudden onset of doom, but the sudden onset of the availability of computers, coupled with a sociological certainty.

Think about it: what are the odds that the earth faces an existential crisis at the exact same moment that computers to predict an existential crisis become available, unless one causes the other via the sociology.

Seems like some people are being very dishonest, and I don't think it's the Freakonomics folks.

None of the currently enacted or proposed economic responses to manmade climate change have even a ghost of a chance to reverse, prevent, or even mitigate in any meaningful manner, the global output of carbon dioxide causing our supposed impending doom.

Exposing that truth is the horrible crime being committed by SuperFreakonomics. It's not global warming that's at issue, it's the naked power grab by people claiming the fight against global warming as their cause.

"Do the future benefits from cutting emissions outweigh the costs of doing so?"

That's the question Krugman (and Gore) are afraid to answer and so they stifle its very mention. (As Father might say, it's heresy.) Gore already made his $100 million so I guess he's set with a luxurious cave.

Even if we went back to horse and buggy days, we would be buried in a mountain of stinking, bacteria-loaded manure. Should we dump it all at Krugman's house?

My kids used to turn off comments when they were little, if I was saying something they did not want to hear. Sometimes they would put their hands over their ears and make noises. Sometimes they would lock themselves in their rooms. Most often, and most effectively, they would pretend to be listening but not hear a word I said.

This is pretty much how the global warming consensus believers deal with inconvenient viewpoints.

I've had a few comments approved on the NYT, but most weren't approved so I stopped wasting my time. There was nothing wrong with them, they just pointed out how the reporter was wrong. I'd imagine that Krugman's comments are moderated too. I've had comments deleted or been banned from dozens of sites, and if they won't let you oppose them on their own site then you can still oppose them on your site and around the web. If you have a case against Krugman, go after his "downstream" by leaving comments on sites that promote his POV, with the comments designed to show his audience how he's wrong. That's how to cut him off from some amount of support.

As for AGW, who knows? You can't trust any of the scientists involved because you never know when someone has been bought off in one way or another. Sadly, my satire video about what those like Al Gore are really after never really took off.

I can understand turning off comments selectively. Some posts are going to produce boring and hateful comments that are utterly predictable. Why not limit comments to posts that will promote discussion instead of division along political lines?

Of course, I guess a blogger could just avoid those subjects if they don't want to deal with the comments.

Air pollution has reduced the amount of sunlight reaching Washington by 16 per cent in the past half century. This dramatic change probably took place fairly recently. It was discovered when the Smithsonian Institution compared findings - http://bit.ly/1TcIbW

tonejunkie, Others have already pointed out that the oil companies have a motive to be on board the Global Warming bus.

I would like to deal with a different issue. I did read the links that you posted but they do not say what you claim. Most say variations of Chevron's site:The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states in its Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to manmade GHGs.So all the oil companies cite the same study that says human actions might be responsible for global warming and that proves that AGW is a certainty.

The funny thing is that religious conservatives tend to be friendly to the idea of environmentalism. I mean, morally it is the right thing to do without regard to costs. But for some reason those on the left do not want to be sane, rational, or respectful they would rather take the path of smug condensation. I mean, your intentions are good so that most mean that you are smarter and superior to others.

The worst part of the extreme left and well intentioned AGW folks is that when the Earth's natural warming and cooling cycles go back to cooling then the entire environmental moment looks bad.

Try laying out an honest argument and asking people to support doing the right thing. That is harder than just trying to bully and scare people but in the long run it is likely to be more effective.

There was an episode of, In Search Of... hosted by Leonard Nimoy called The Coming Ice Age. That was a mainstream, popular science-based program in the 70's, and not some fringe lunatic ranting and raving (The man's a Vulcan, for crying out loud).

Then, by the 90's, we were all going to burn up because of global warming, and one Discovery Channel show I remember claimed that deserts were expanding worldwide and would consume civilization (Those parts of civilization that weren't inundated by rising oceans, that is).

None of those things seem to be happening now - and that's been evident for a while - so today any "climate change" has been made into a potential disaster, and we're about to be taxed on the amount of CO2 we exhale.

Tell me this doesn't show a persistent and increasingly virulent pattern of abject idiocy from all of the ecotards on the left.

What is the theory here, economist guy? You don't want too many people on your webpage? The obvious theory is that you don't like what people are going to say on your post that demands that we all bow to the scientific consensus on global warming.

The New York Times has never printed any of the letters I have written to them. Obviously my opinions threaten their complacency, and thus they do not want to give me access to their audience.

Bruce Hayden said…Then there is political correctness. Of course they want to look politically correct here.bagoh20 said…They believe the politics will win over the science…

Ohhh, so it’s political correctness! So let me get this straight. According to you guys, Chevron, BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell, etc. weren’t compelled by overwhelming scientific data to finally acknowledge AGW. No, rather, their corporate statements were actually politically correct flat-out lying, unfortunately perhaps feeding the hoax, but nevertheless not a problem for you conservatives because you know they secretly agree with you. Gosh, I don’t know what to say at this point. Maybe I was wrong about you when I said you’d only concede if Limbaugh does. You might consider him paid off to maintain your belief. Not in a traitorous way, of course. You'd no doubt construe it so he was getting paid to be “in on the joke” because he’s brilliant that way to you.

Meanwhile, hey, I’m not completely certain about AGW. But if you want to stay in the camp of 3% of climatologists, go right ahead. I, on the other hand, am more confident in the camp of 97% of climatologists:

“…climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.”http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.htm

Chef Mojo said…Science is NOT about consensus. Consensus is an unscientific principle.Just Lurking said…To paraphrase Kipling: it is "the liberal's burden" to be correct. Once they reach a consensus on anything in their ivory tower echo-chambers, the debate is over and the focus is turned towards the endgame. To that end, dissenters need to be educated or silenced.

Scientific consensus is meaningless? Funny, 97% just happens to be the same scientific consensus on the theory of evolution: http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550

Imagine that -- 97% scientific consensus on one theory is legitimate while 97% scientific consensus on another theory is illegitimate, assuming you guys acknowledge evolution. Weird. Not that that matters, of course, because I know conservatives have an excuse for just about everything since many don't accept evolution anyway either: “Independent of religiosity and education, political conservatism predicted disbelief [in evolution].”http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16859387http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/315/5809/187a/DC1/1

Just as with the theory of evolution, conservatives are driven more by their own emotional preferences and dogmatic group-think, so predictably, they drew battle lines against the theory of AGW and will cling to it come hell or high water (pun intended) not only because accepting AGW is the more trusting-science position, but because it has the double whammy of being an environmental position too (fuck that!). And we all know how much conservatives hate environmentalists (damn hippies!). This is why whenever there’s an anti-science or anti-environment position, you can be sure to find conservatives dominating it.

I say we get rid of all the scientists and replace them with conservative pundits. That'll teach 'em to never again stick their science where it DOESN'T BELONG: THE MARKET!!!!

THE MARKET RULES!!! IT IS IMPERVIOUS TO YOUR FACTS AND LOGIC!!! IT RUNS ON SOMETHING BETTER!!!

Silly Scientists. Bow down to the logic of human desire and its role as an impetus for the exchange of goods and services. YOU HEAR ME? HUMAN DESIRE ALWAYS TRUMPS FACT AND LOGIC!!! Always and forever!!! HIGH FIVE - RADICAL AWESOMENESS OF THE BEST INVENTION NATURE JUST COULDN'T COME UP WITH!!! HAHAHAHAH!!!

If conservative pundits were conducting research, can you imagine how far advanced we would be? Instead of electricity, there would be this super cool form of energy called "positicity". It consists of saying things that make people feel good, obviating the desire to improve life! How POWERFUL is that?!?!? Huh?

Oh, I especially like the part where Chase quotes the Bible. Guess he should tell the doctors not to treat lepers anymore but to just leave them outside of the Hebrews' campsite to rot.

Hey - I'm still waiting for scientists to prove to me that carbon dioxide retains heat.

I mean, in my greenhouse, I keep the weather hot paying to have the CO2 pumped out, and instead, I put in a heat lamp. It's not half as efficient, you see. But efficiency is a liberal conspiracy to destroy markets and have government take over all economic activity. If I wanted the temperature hot by just leaving the CO2 in, I wouldn't be paying for a heat lamp, paying to have the gas pumped out, and paying for the labor of this ingenious scheme. But I do it, so that I can pretend that a relationship proved by scientists over a hundred years ago DOESN'T EXIST. WHICH IS A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT THING!!!

I'm sure you will all applaud me for helping to keep the market for heat lamps and gas pumps afloat. I'm just a concerned citizen of MARKETOPIA - a place where obsolete industries are kept alive just because. We wouldn't want oil, gas and coal companies to become endangered species. Only liberals worry about endangered species.

“…climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.”http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532"

1. 10,200 scientists were contacted. 3146 responded, for a self selected response rate of a little less than 31%. 97% of 31% is about 30%.

2. The survey was restricted to academics and government employees, so at least they were working with a group with overwhelming left wing/environmentalist bias.

3. Even so, only 82% of those respondents thought human activity had anything to do with global warming (.82x.31=25%).

4. To get to their numbers, they had to eliminate the "biggest doubters", petroleum geologists and meteorologists.

5. Finally, the authors state "the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes." Of course, if you define "those who understand" as 30% of those surveyed, after correcting for respondents that disagree with our beliefs by eliminating their responses.

I was actually shocked reading that article, because I really would expect there to be more agreement within that group. I don't know how you could read that article and come away thinking there's anything approaching consensus on this issue, even among government and academic scientists. Thanks for the link.

As to the consensus on evolution being the same as that on AGW, I'll stipulate that's true for purposes of argument. Who's asking for a major upheaval in the world's economy (or at least the US economy) over evolution? If there was some twit doing so, there'd be a lot more people who currently accept the Miller-Urey experiment as evidence of evolution (and I do) questioning whether it is a good model of processes leading to the first living organisms.

As to major upheavals, I hear ya Crimso. Whenever I want to know if something has empirical or intellectual merit to it, I ask myself, "What would be the practical consequences of accepting this?" That way, I don't have to do any reasoning. I just follow my immediate interests instead.

Never let thinking get in the way of one's own immediate interests, I always say. Yep. That's the way knowledge advances, I hear.

First of all, Einstein called Galileo "the father... of modern science" in case that means anything to you. And even regardless of what Einstein said, for you to consider today's science as having not advanced at all from what predominated in Galileo's time and place which was under heavy Christian Church oppression only demonstrates the anti-scientific view that I was talking about.

Oh, I’m sorry, I thought the sub-group of climatologists who are active in research was the most significant group and which is why I mentioned them specifically and I noticed you omitted them specifically. Shocking.

“In analyzing responses by sub-groups, Doran found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.”

"Whenever I want to know if something has empirical or intellectual merit to it, I ask myself, "What would be the practical consequences of accepting this?" That way, I don't have to do any reasoning. I just follow my immediate interests instead."

Then you need to sell everything you own and donate the money to the search for near-Earth objects and the response to the ones that pose a threat. The science behind that threat to humanity is far more sound.

I didn't "quote" the Bible. I stated some evident principles that are written in it.

The fact that montana can't get even something that simple straight is an example of why he never finds anyone taking him seriously here. All of his statements are suspect. And Ann and her regulars have far too much common sense and open-mindedness to fall for montana's and his lemming-like ilks nonsense, poorly sourced, questionable correlations and their religious obedience to their given-to-them-by-others-on-the-left point of view.

montana and friends faith - blind faith - in their side on too many subjects where there are little or no facts to support their points beyond a reasonable doubt. But does that stop them from opening their mouths and seeking to aregue and attack others, no matter how flimsy their evidence? So sorry to shake up their religious faith in the liberal Science-Fad-of-the-Moment Church. No foundation in reality to aid in their defense only leaves them making ad hominem attacks.

Montana and his brain dead allies are like the dog that's caught with his shit on the couch and never looks the one who calls them on it in the eye but instead does other destructive behavior to avoid facing the music.

Oh and TJ and montana - do you think your left-wing masters that give you your talkng points even give a shit about you or how idiotic you are made to look when your asses are handed to you continually on this blog?

Wow. You knocked it out of the ballpark. It's called "How To Lie With Statistics". Biased samples give a spurious air of scientific precision.

Montana:

"Never let thinking get in the way of one's own immediate interests, I always say. Yep. That's the way knowledge advances, I hear."

Funny. Ha ha

But I'll raise you one funny:

As some wag said "I'll believe in the Global Warming Theory when thowe who say that they do begin to live their personal lives (your "immediate interests") as if there was GW.

Someone mentioned Tom Friedman. A hypocrite, who married into a shopping-center developer family (you know the developers the environmentalists say are defoliating & despoiling our planet), & who lives on an 11 acre spread with beaucoup rooms (Big Carbon Footprint), says that we all have to march on Washington to get something done about Climate Change.

Having once tried to post a scathing comment on Krugmans NYT blog. Only to see it rejected and to boot have a comment very similar to mine get posted I can agree that whoever moderates his NYT blog is particularly inconsistent. I saw it sitting their and I went so far as taking a screenshot before my comment was deleted...I then sent in the screenshot to the nytimes ombudsman complaining about inconsistent moderation...Never hear anything from the ombudsman office beyond a form autoreply

What if people getting all up in arms about global cooling spread black soot all over the ice caps and melted them?

THEN would the oceans rise 20 feet and flood most of NYC?

It seems most likely to me that its a sort of self-aggrandizing hubris to think that we puny humans can do something profound enough that the planet itself will alter. But if that's not true, if we *can* change our entire climate, it seems even more vital that we NOT try to FIX things. Changing our climate ON PURPOSE seems like a very bad idea.

It's not that drastic a notion. Turn on the television and be bombarded with ads for "green" this and "green" that. It SELLS.

All the big oil companies are fighting a PR battle. By saying "yes, yes" and trying to spin themselves "green" they head that off a little bit, or at least as much as they can.

A company (oil or not) does not hire and pay scientists to decide if AGW is real or not. The marketing department full of humanities majors sees a trend and realizes that being able to put "carbon neutral" or "green" or some other little blurb about their eco-consciousness on the box is good marketing. They know they're selling to some 65% or more of the consumer market who believes (or it was... it's gone down now) and it's just smart marketing to try to cash in on that.

It's not that drastic a notion. Turn on the television and be bombarded with ads for "green" this and "green" that. It SELLS.

Actually, it doesn't, except to politicians. This is why Chevron and BP are quietly backing off many of their "green" programs while still giving lip service to them. GM is also finding out that simply promoting gas mileage won't sell otherwise crappy cars.

People who self-identify strongly as environmentalists are doing their own thing pretty much ignored by everyone else, as usual.

They start pushing for government action on global warming as the various clean air between nations projects bear fruit, and the severe smog and air pollution in cities responds to "smog" limits on cars and the o-zone hole seems not to have been a disaster after all.

Kyoto passes some resolutions but our government decides not to ratify. There is still no reason to pay much attention. Most of the "cures" are irrational socialist pastoral fantasies of quaint brown people living in harmony with nature in mud huts without electricity, and certainly aren't taken seriously by "developing" nations that essentially respond with "screw you."

But then a tipping point is reached where the possibility of extremely damaging legislation seems likely.

So a whole lot of people that had never ever considered the issue before are told that the science is *settled* and they aren't allowed to investigate or scrutinize it or get their questions answered in a dispassionate and rational way. A great number of those people are conservatives working in science and engineering fields, in Math or energy or economics or technology.

And even counting those with profound religious faith, who *science* has shown through studies to have FEWER superstitions and fewer beliefs in anything paranormal than non-believers... they want rational explanations and not emotionalism.

Accepting that AGW is true... just for argument... this is the "fix."

Nukes. As many new nuclear reactors built as quickly as possible to provide clean energy in the amounts necessary here in the US and elsewhere.

And industrial development in developing countries, as fast as possible, in order to get the people there into economies that can afford to be "green."

I have to say, Tone Junkie, I'm disappointed. Here you are reverting to emotional, ad hominem attacks when you showed evidence of actually being able to make a rational argument. Rational arguments are much more becoming and admirable.

hey jeremy, remember a few days ago when there was a consensus among lefties that rush limbaugh had made certain comments? turns out the comments had actually come from the brainpan of another lefty, and geneolson was too duh to realize it.

Anyone who wants to see a scathing scientific critque of the AGW hoax, go here:

http://www.globalclimatescam.com/?p=552&cpage=1#comment-3246

Best to split-screen and watch the Powerpoint along with the speech.

p.s. James Hansen was one of those who predicted global cooling back in the 70's John Holdren, now science czar, warned that huge parts of the Antarcti ice shelf would fall into the sea, creating tsunamis hundreds of feet high that would wipe out coastal areas all over the planet.

p.p.s Translated from Latin, the motto of Britain's Royal Society, established in 1660, is "No one gets the last word".

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